Valve's Year Beast Brawl has introduced a pay-to-win element to the hugely popular free-to-play game Dota 2, The Verge reports.
The mode allows players to buy a competitive advantage over their rivals. Unlike some mobile games which are free-to-download but then require substantial in-game purchases in order to progress, Dota 2 was entirely free-to-play. While Year Beast Brawl, released to mark the Chinese New Year, is temporary, it allows for significant imbalances based on whether you've bought ability points or not.
Last year, Valve marked the Chinese New Year with a dragon-salying mini-game in which teams of five players tried to overcome the powerful Year Beast. This time round, the Year Beasts aren't quite as formidable and fit neatly into the five-on-five gameplay style. In a Year Beast Brawl, each team chooses a monster ally.
That ally can then be upgraded using ability points. Points can be earned by winning brawls or purchased by players. Points can be purchased in a special Arcane Bundle costing $34.99. 1,000 points are available for $2.49, while you can get 2,400 for $4.99.
The result is hugely unequal gameplay if one team has spent significantly and another hasn't. More worryingly, Year Beast Brawl may open the door to play-to-win elsewhere within the game.
As it stands, Dota's popularity hasn't been dented, with it recently becoming the first Steam game to have more than one million concurrent users.
